The trailer for Five Kinds of Silence is a shock compared to the usual comic Cambridge fare. The hardened eyes of abusers; the tormented faces of victims; the stylized violence which retains the power to disturb. This is a very different kind of play, harrowing in its content.

Billy (played by Ed Broadhead) has sexually and physically abused his wife and daughters for many years. Finally, his daughters have broken out of this cycle – by killing him. The emotional rawness of the play is one of its strengths, but also presents a moral minefield. It is not, however, as daunting to director Marthe de Ferrer as it might be to others. As director of The Penelopiad last term, she has already shown her sensitivity in the handling of a provocative rape scene.

“I’ve had people come up to me asking how graphic the play is because, given their own experiences, they are not sure they will be comfortable seeing a clear representation of violence on stage,” says de Ferrer, explaining her choice to stylize the action shown in the play through physical theatre. “I think stylizing something can make it more sensitive.

"It leaves more to the imagination, which I think is important, and let’s you choose to disengage a bit if you need to. With the rape scene in The Penelopiad I was reassured by having someone who was worried come and watch. They thought it was handled in a sensitive manner, but without shying away from the issue. Hopefully we’ve managed to strike the right balance again.”

This does not mean giving the audience an easy ride, however. “There’s nothing I hate more than a passive audience – when people just sit there and go ‘Oh that’s very nice’ and just leave again. With physical theatre it forces the audience to have that gut reaction. Even Rose [Reade, assistant director] and I sometimes have a physical response in rehearsals.” After being shown some snippets of the drama, I can only describe it as gut-wrenching.

The technical elements of the play have all been engineered to focus maximum attention on the central moral issues. De Ferrer claims a mixed dramatic heritage. “I’m a Brechtian in terms of setting and more Stanislavsky in terms of character. I like actors who really connect with the text”, she explains. Five Kinds of Silence's minimalist set aims to avoid any distraction from the actors. “It doesn’t really have a location. Lots of people set it in inner city, woking class homes. What I wanted to do was get across the way abuse could happen anywhere - how it affects all tiers. Also there’s nothing cringe-making than Cambridge students trying to do mock working class accents. So we’ve set it in a – I wouldn’t say typical – but in a family that could come from anywhere in any part of the country. I wanted that universality.”

Of course, this also gives the actors nowhere to hide. Hot-seating and improvisation have been de Ferrer’s main method of achieving the connection with character she wants. It’s also given her cast freedom to explore new things. “Each of the monologues uses a slightly different style to give the play variation.”

The most ambitious technical element of the play is the use of physical theatre. Assistant director and choreographer Rose Reade is in charge here, building on the theatre she and de Ferrer used so successfully in The Penelopiad. “Rose works really well with all of the cast”, expands de Ferrer. “It’s been great to see them develop their confidence in a new area.” Olivia Bowman, a multi-part cast member, explains to me how she has gone from being nervous about physical theatre to confident enough to contribute her own ideas. “The physical theatre provides some of the most effective moments in the play. I’d say that my purely physical parts are more important than my speaking parts.”

And what of de Ferrer’s other aim, the understanding of character? Bowman plays perhaps the most evil character in the play: Billy’s mother. In a striking foray into the oft-forgotten issue of female domestic violence against men, it is she who starts the chain of abuse with her attacks on Billy and his father. Can Bowman gain any understanding of this? “I do kind of understand. I’ve known people who are similar, but not to the same extent. But I think it is easy to understand.”

Whether evil can and should be understood is the most intriguing issue that the play raises. “It explains rather than excuses”, says de Ferrer. “I think there’s an explanation behind everyone’s actions to a certain extent, but there’s no excuse. I want the audience to feel sympathy for Billy, but then in turn feel horrified that they can feel something for such an evil person. If I can achieve that my job is done. I wanted the idea that there is some sort of hope for survival after atrocity. Billy’s daughters aren’t like him. There is hope – they are alive, they are free – but they are never truly free from what has happened to them. It’s not entirely negative. I’m a big fan of ambiguity – anything that makes people think.”

It is rare to find a play which deals so directly with evil and its implications. It is not something anyone can afford to ignore.

Five Kinds of Silence runs at Corpus Playroom from Tue 28 January to Sat 1 February